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That's another big problem. Christians assume that "accepting Jesus" is such a simple, black-and-white matter. But it's just not the case. Nobody is a totally blank slate. Everybody has their biases and influences, to varying degrees. Some people are so indoctrinated that it's almost impossible for them to change their mind - not through any fault of their own, of course, yet somehow they still end up deserving their fate in believers' eyes.

You can't. It's a fear tactic to keep people in the fold. But Christians are rarely concerned with testing God or proving the religion objectively anyway. Most just assume it's true and think everybody else should assume the same thing, evidence or no evidence. Testing doesn't come into the equation much.
Oh, and the faithful would have plenty of excuses to worm their way out of a testing failure. A non-answer would be dismissed as God's right to stay silent, and opposing evidence would be explained away. You can't win no matter what you do.

A few ways. If they're Calvinist, they'll likely just say that those people weren't elect. For everyone else, they'll probably use that damn Romans passage that says God's attributes have been clearly seen and so people have no excuse. What exactly does that mean though? I doubt they would argue that a person can be saved simply by believing in some vague God of nature. Others would use the story of Cornelius in Acts and argue that God will find a way to reach out to those who truly seek him, and so therefore anyone who doesn't hear obviously didn't search hard enough, or would not have believed anyway even if they did hear. Which is a problem not only because it's impossible to prove that all the unreached did not search or would not have believed, but also because how the hell are they supposed to search for something if they don't know it exists? These excuses are just an easy way of dismissing the unreached as deserving hell, without even knowing their hearts. All you gotta do is make assumptions about strangers, and bam, God is off the hook. Of course, no surprise there, as Christians will always bend over backwards to defend their God.

I think Calvinists would claim that if someone left the faith, then they were never truly saved to begin with. Either they never really believed it in their hearts, or they just thought they were saved but actually weren't. I have no idea how they make it work but I think it's something like that. And so it's only the ones who are "truly" saved who will persevere until the end, and that's what they mean by once saved always saved. But it's not just Calvinists who believe this. Some non-Calvinists do too.
This raises the question of how a person is supposed to know whether they're truly saved or just deluding themselves into thinking they're saved, and will someday fall away. By their logic, there is no way of knowing until they die while still believing in Christ. So much for the assurance of salvation that Calvinists ramble on about.....

It's my first one too. I suppose that not *too* much will change for me. I just won't be going to church. And I've made a new playlist filled with entirely secular christmas music rather than the religious ones that I used to love, but I know now will just make me sad. It will still feel weird though, and I imagine that I'll have a mixture of emotions.

Not really a mistake, just more of an embarrassment. Several years back, some Christians had stuck bible passages on lampposts all over town. On one lamppost, someone else had covered the bible passage with a "God's not real" note, or something like that. I stood and scraped/peeled it off, even though people were looking at me. I thought I was being a good little Christian. In reality, I was just a good little moron making a fool of myself.

Could it be Psalm 82?
1God presides in the great assembly;
he renders judgment among the “gods”:
2“How long will you a defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked? b
3Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
5“The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6“I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
8Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are your inheritance.

Good to see that you've been able to get some help. Hopefully it will be beneficial.
If you're having trouble with your mind wandering, maybe you need some distractions? Movies, tv, a good book, or whatever else that helps you relax might quiet those constant nagging fears, at least for a little while. Maybe set aside a time each day where you're determined to not think about religion at all, if it's driving you crazy.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with having unanswered questions. It's fine to just say, "I don't know". And there's no requirement to find 100% natural explanations for everything either, as that may be just as rigid as some religious beliefs.
I've reached the point where I wonder how the hell I ever believed in hell. But I can't be too hard on myself or others because I know it's all conditioning and indoctrination. I was made to think that this was normal, justifiable, and even good. In Christianity you're told not to think or question, and doubting is portrayed as bad (remember Doubting Thomas and Jesus' rebuke of him?). We were also told that God is the ultimate goodness and authority, so whatever he does is totally okay, even though we would label humans as evil if they did the same things. In Christianity, God's ways are higher than ours, and so he is not to be questioned. So that was a really long way of saying that people's devotion to the religion and to God keep them from seeing hell for what it is. Your mother's love for God will refuse to let her think of him as anything less than perfectly righteous, and so she and every other devout believer will find numerous ways to justify it, no matter how absurd.